The aim of the paper is to show and document the husserlian concern to validate a position of ontological realism, and the inappropriateness of his method to this task. It is precisley the scientific charachter of his philosophy that drew Husserl to idealism and solipsism, despite his original intentions and motivations.

I review ornithological literature in order to demonstrate that conventions of description and illustration, as well as some aspects of biological theory relating to birds, put a strong focus on male birds. I criticize the sexist aspects of ornithology from the standpoint of recent feminist philosophy of science, establishing connections between the ways in which we view animals and the ways in which we viewourselves and arguing that it is costly to humans, specifically women, to suggest that females of the (...) nonhuman species are biologically inadequate in relation to their male counterparts. Finally, I note that failure to notice and excise residual sexism in animal science also encourages people to be inattentive to and less considerate of a large and significant part of nature. I conclude with some suggestionsfor reform. (shrink)

Krukowski, a painter/philosopher, tries to understand postmodern art and then speculates about what post-postmodern art will be. He gives a valuable account of the roots of modernism in 19th C philosophy and of its slide into skepticism about art serving any epistemic function. Postmodern aesthetics though is just an inconsistent mix of modernist ideas and their opposites. Postmodern artists believed themselves creative only by coming up with a work, or an idea, unconnected to modernism. Post-postmodernists will likely do the same (...) to postmodernism since they too are constrained to deny any purpose or progress in art. In that case, Krukowski thinks, art will remain local and marginal, or end altogether. (In the sequel most artists now ignore the philosophical conundrum and get on with producing works, sometimes playful, sometimes deep, sometimes beautiful. This 21st C eclecticism is a welcome respite from the theory wars.). (shrink)

Nicholson's goal is to show that interpretation of a text can be done rigorously and be true. He argues this by showing that perception also has an interpretative dimension yet we usually accept claims rooted in perception as true. This effort to show the soundness of hermeneutical criticism is in fact an attempt to show that anti-foundationalism does not default to relativism. I trace his well-prosecuted argument for the truth of interpretation to the point where it becomes opaque. The argument (...) is nonetheless instructive and helps to better see the conundrum that anti-foundationalists create for epistomologists and perhaps for themselves. (shrink)

Jones sketches a theory of interpretation of literary works and tests it on Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, Brothers Karamazov and A la recherche du temps perdu. The theory centers on creativity and the strong parallelisms between artistic and critical production. The result is that the critic is shown to have considerable latitude in reading a text--perhaps too much. Jones acknowledges the danger of stressing inferred rather than observed features of texts. He sees his sketch of a theory of interpretation as a (...) creative process as a corrective to historical interpretation which has the reader uncover the author's meaning embedded in the text. A fuller account of his theory might skirt the radical subjectivism of criticism beyond the traditional boundaries. (shrink)

We prove the following surprising property of Heyting's intuitionistic propositional calculus, IpC. Consider the collection of formulas, φ, built up from propositional variables (p,q,r,...) and falsity $(\perp)$ using conjunction $(\wedge)$ , disjunction (∨) and implication (→). Write $\vdash\phi$ to indicate that such a formula is intuitionistically valid. We show that for each variable p and formula φ there exists a formula Apφ (effectively computable from φ), containing only variables not equal to p which occur in φ, and such that for (...) all formulas ψ not involving $p, \vdash \psi \rightarrow A_p\phi$ if and only if $\vdash \psi \rightarrow \phi$ . Consequently quantification over propositional variables can be modelled in IpC, and there is an interpretation of the second order propositional calculus, IpC2, in IpC which restricts to the identity on first order propositions. An immediate corollary is the strengthening of the usual interpolation theorem for IpC to the statement that there are least and greatest interpolant formulas for any given pair of formulas. The result also has a number of interesting consequences for the algebraic counterpart of IpC, the theory of Heyting algebras. In particular we show that a model of IpC2 can be constructed whose algebra of truth-values is equal to any given Heyting algebra. (shrink)

Working in the fragment of Martin-Löfs extensional type theory [12] which has products (but not sums) of dependent types, we consider two additional assumptions: firstly, that there are (strong) equality types; and secondly, that there is a type which is universal in the sense that terms of that type name all types, up to isomorphism. For such a type theory, we give a version of Russell's paradox showing that each type possesses a closed term and (hence) that all terms of (...) each type are provably equal. We consider the kind of category theoretic structure which corresponds to this kind of type theory and obtain a categorical version of the paradox. A special case of this result is the degeneracy of a locally cartesian closed category with a morphism which is generic in the sense that every other morphism in the category can be obtained from it via pullback. (shrink)

At some time around August 324b.c., Antipater, the regent of Macedonia received orders from Alexander the Great that he was to be replaced with another eminent officer in the Macedonian court, Craterus. In addition to his removal from office, Antipater was ordered by Alexander to leave Macedonia for the East, bringing with him fresh levies to replenish those that comprised Craterus' own contingent of veterans from Opis. Though Craterus left Alexander's court shortly thereafter, neither man can be said to have (...) made the journey speedily or directly. A range of reasons has been given to explain Craterus' slow advancement, including the construction of infrastructure to allow the transportation of military resources from east to west, the poor state of his health, and the need to recruit more men. By the time of Alexander's death in June of 323, Craterus and his forces had only reached the province of Cilicia in southeastern Anatolia. Antipater's immediate reaction to his new role is not recorded, but what is known is that he remained steadfast in Macedonia, seemingly in defiance of Alexander's orders. It is the purpose of this paper to evaluate Antipater's refusal to depart from Macedonia, to explore whether tensions between Antipater and his replacement could account for Craterus' sluggish advance and to highlight the impact that Greek domestic politics had on Antipater's position in Macedonia. (shrink)

In his Preface to Ideas, Husserl gives a concise overview of his phenomenology and addresses two serious objections to his phenomenological program. My Introduction to his Preface provides the background to the writing of the piece and suggests it does not do enough to counter the charges of psychologism and idealism.

The cosmic singularity provides negligible evidence for creation in the finite past, and hence theism. A physical theory might have no metric or multiple metrics, so a ‘beginning’ must involve a first moment, not just finite age. Whether one dismisses singularities or takes them seriously, physics licenses no first moment. The analogy between the Big Bang and stellar gravitational collapse indicates that a Creator is required in the first case only if a Destroyer is needed in the second. The need (...) for and progress in quantum gravity and the underdetermination of theories by data make it difficult to take singularities seriously. The singularity exemplifies the sort of gap that is likely to be closed by scientific progress, obviating special divine action. The apparent irrelevance of cardinality to practices of counting infinite sets in classical field theory and Fourier analysis is noted. Introduction The Doctrine of Creation and Its Warrant Cardinality and Sizes of Infinity Modern Cosmology and Creation Tolerance or Intolerance toward Singularities? Leibniz against Incompetent Watchmaker? Induction from Earlier Theories' Breakdown? Stellar Collapse Implies Theistic Destroyer Stacking the Deck for GTR Quantum Gravity Tends to Resolve Singularities Vicious God-of-the-Gaps Character Fluctuating or Inaccessible Warrant Big Bang Cosmology Not Especially Congenial to Faith CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This is a collection of articles clarifying the nature of Husserlian phenomenology. Dreyfus argues that, given that Husserl put intentionality at the centre of cognitive investigation and painstakingly analyzed it and related concepts in logic, linguistics and psychology he is the father of current research in cognitive science and artificial intelligence. The authors include Follesdal, Fodor, Mohanty and Searle among others.

Proceedings of the Banff Congress on Theoretical Psychology. Philosophers and psychologists discuss the relative merits of their approaches to the study of consciousness.